"Bloody hell, Hellen!"

Hellen wiped her mouth and looked up at her husband. "Leave me alone," she cried as she rushed to the bathroom to clean herself up. She hadn't wanted sex, but in her inebriated state had given in. After tonight she wasn't going to let her husband have his way with her again. Enough was enough.

Martin rolled his eyes and stormed out of the room. "Hellen!"

Hellen, having at least rinsed her mouth out, opened the door and glared at her husband. "No more! Don't touch me. I don't even want you in my bed!"

"Our bed, damn it!"

"My bed!" she yelled. "Now let me be. I need a bath."

Martin rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll move my things to another room."

"Thank you." Hellen whispered, a small part of her aching at the dull tone of her husband's words. She was sure she'd hurt him, but she just couldn't bear it anymore. She saw no reason to continue to give in to his advances when she wanted nothing to do with sex. She never had liked the act, but her need to be…her need to be what, she wondered. Shaking her head, she closed the door and locked it before stripping off her robe and starting the water for her bath.

Vera jerked awake and looked around her room, sure that she'd find herself in a bathroom running a bath and pouring in a blue liquid for bubbles, instead finding herself in her familiar bedroom, the moon shining in through the window.

"What the bloody hell was that?" she muttered in the darkness, wondering just where in the world her mind had conjured that dream from. Sighing as she rolled over, she slapped her pillow back into shape and closed her eyes, hoping another dream didn't disrupt her sleep.

Hellen felt her face burn as she realized what she'd interrupted. Looking away from her mother-in-law, she sat the plate she carried down then mumbled a hasty goodbye and left as quickly as she could. Good heavens! When the hell had that started? Sex? And in the afternoon no less! She'd never be able to face Anne again! She'd known about Anne's friend, she'd heard Martin mumbling about the man often enough, but she'd had no idea they were doing…she felt her face burn. Bloody heck! What was she to say to Martin?

"Well you won't be telling him about this!" Hellen muttered to herself as she opened her car door. Sitting behind the wheel, she slammed the door shut then stared out at nothing in particular trying to get her thoughts under control. She knew that her mother and father-in-law hadn't been anything more than two people living in the same house so she'd just assumed one or both of them didn't care for sex. She blushed as she muttered, "Obviously I was wrong."

Vera tossed about as she saw scenery passing her by as though she were in the car. She could feel the embarrassment and heard the woman's thoughts as though they were her own. Trying to wake up, she moaned as she struggled and finally came awake. Sitting up, she swung her feet around and got out of bed, giving up on sleep.

Looking at the clock only made her scowl – four bloody o'clock in the morning. What a horrible night of, she shook her head…not sleep. Whatever that was, Vera definitely knew she wouldn't call it sleep or rest of any sort. She felt more tired now than she had when she'd crawled into bed only four short hours ago.

Grabbing her robe, she pulled it on and tied it about her as she stuffed her feet into her slippers. If she was going to be up this early she might as well go back to studying the case notes she'd brought home with her last night, the same ones that had kept her up late in the first place.

Sitting at the table and staring down at Billy's scraggly handwriting, she felt the same sort of panic she'd felt when she'd first heard his report. Hellen had been alive when her husband was stabbed repeatedly. She'd watched in horror as the man she loved gasped for air once his throat was cut. Her front was covered in not just her blood, but that of her husband. This wasn't just a senseless murder, there was passion and madness behind the motive.

Hellen had been stabbed in the heart then her throat slit before her body was let to fall forward so that MINE could be carved on her back. That word made Vera wonder if the murderer had been a stalker. Or maybe she'd had an affair that had gone wrong? Though nothing they'd discovered about the couple so far would suggest as much. They had managed to discover the husband owned a couple of clubs of the lap and pole dance variety, but not much else. The children, a son and a daughter, hadn't been contacted yet because one was still on their honeymoon and the other was away on a business trip. No one they talked to seemed to have phone numbers for either of them. There was Martin's mother, which Vera had hoped wouldn't be the one they would have to tell, but a day was gone without any resolution in contacting the children so first thing later this morning she knew she would have to go to Anne's residence and tell her.

Vera hoped that the woman wasn't alone, knowing that this was going to break her heart. She'd seen the pictures of Martin with an older woman and had found confirmation that the woman was his mother. She had seen the adoration in the woman's eyes as she looked at her son, the way Martin's arm was wrapped around his mother, and knew that they were close. How was she going to break this woman's heart without breaking her own?

Telling the families was always hard, but Vera had always found it harder when it was a mother she was telling that their child had been murdered. She supposed it was because of her own mother, the loss of her when she was so young, or maybe it was because mothers always took the news the hardest. "Or maybe you're just an old softy," she muttered to herself.

Looking at the photos from the scene, she once again found herself wondering just how the murderer had managed to keep the couple joined as he murdered them. She had questioned Billy about it, wondering if the murderer had positioned them that way, but Billy had told her that wasn't what happened, that everything pointed to the original thought that they'd been attacked in the middle of making love.

Vera looked at the pictures and other reports. Forensics had found nothing but the couple's fingerprints and bloody shoe prints in the room. Only one of them was good enough to be of any use, the others smeared to the point of barely being recognized as prints. By the size of the print, they'd determined that the murderer was a man, which Vera had rolled her eyes at. Of course it was a bloody man! She'd had no doubt of that just looking at the way the victims were murdered. She'd never met a woman that had enough brute strength to do the damage that she'd been staring at.

Shep had been a big help keeping Kenny and the others from seeing Hellen. Billy had done as he promised and no actual photographs of the bodies had made their way into anyone's hands but hers. It was bad enough hearing the gasps and whispers when she'd put the photo of the couple up on the board in the incident room. If she could have gotten by without it, she wouldn't have done that, but the team needed to see their victims' faces. She'd heard Shep growling at Kenny later and wondered just what the younger woman had caught him saying, but she hadn't asked because she thought it was best not to know.

Feeling her eyes grow heavy, she nodded off, her head resting on her hand. Images swirled and focused until she was once again seeing things that didn't make sense, hearing the voice that was like hers but not hers.

"He hasn't. At least I don't think he has. It's me."

"Can you tell me what that problem is?"

Hellen sighed and felt her face crumble in embarrassment and tears as she looked across at the dark haired woman.

"It's okay, Hellen. We'll take our time." She slid a bowl of stones across the table and smiled at Hellen. "Would you pick a stone out of that bowl for me? A stone you feel some kind of affinity with."

Hellen sighed as she reached out and fingered through the stones, finally finding one to pick up. Answering the question of, why that one, she was near tears again as she stated that it was because it seemed as though it was the odd one out…how she'd always felt. She confessed that she didn't know if she wanted to be with Martin anymore, that she'd been planning to leave him once the children were gone. Tears finally rolled down her cheeks as she admitted she didn't like Martin near her, didn't like for him to touch her anymore. It hurt physically to admit it, but what was the point of being here if she didn't tell the truth? It had hurt physically being away from her home last night as well. She was so very confused.

Vera's eyes popped open. What was happening to her? She couldn't possibly be seeing things that happened to Hellen. Could she? She shook her head. No, that would make her…well, just no. That wasn't what was happening. She was just simply over tired and a bit dazed that one of the victims had her face. That was enough to throw anyone off their game.

Her phone rang and jarred her out of her crazed thoughts. "Billy?" she said his name as a question, wondering just why it was that he was calling her this early, surprised that he was up before the sun. "What? Oh don't be daft," she grumbled at him when he asked if she'd been up all night. "I'm always up this early," she lied, knowing that he knew she was lying. She was often up early, just not this early. "Never you mind. Why are you up early?" she redirected his questions, not ready to share the dreams she'd been having with anyone…still unsure of what they were exactly. "Of course I have your file. You told me to take it. Bloody hell, Billy! Where's your head?" she regretted the question as soon as she'd asked it, rolling her eyes at his snarky, rather raunchy, answer. "Go back to bed, you daft thing."

Shaking her head as she ended the call and laid the phone back on the table, she sighed as she looked down at the faces staring up at her from the photograph. "What happened to you? Who did this?" she asked, wondering once again if the dead was talking to her in her dreams and once again dismissing the notion.